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Communities, county hope salt on hand outlasts winter |
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Wednesday, December 17 2008 |
By CHRIS MEYERS
Staff writer
As government agencies throughout states with harsh winters try to find enough road salt to weather all that winter can hand out, local street department officials say they should have enough supplies to make it to spring.
Despite having enough salt on hand, getting it there was much more costly this year than year’s past.
“It nearly doubled,” Jeremy Hart, town supervisor for Churubusco, said today of the salt prices he paid.
He said past prices have been around $60 a ton, but shot up to $135 a ton for this year’s supply, which should last the winter and perhaps have a little left over for late 2009.
If not, the town should be able to afford to buy more, according to a recent report he gave to the town council.
The price of salt for use on winter roads in Columbia City also more than doubled this year, from $54.19 a ton last year to an estimated $118.54 this season, street department head Kelly Cearbaugh reported to the Board of Works at a past meeting.
Cearbaugh said the city has enough salt and sand to get through the winter, and more can be purchased if it’s a particularly hard winter.
To help with future salt costs for Columbia City, street department officials have built a storage facility so more salt can be kept on hand.
Columbia City has looked at alternatives to salt, including calcium chloride and more sand.
Adding more sand is the trend across the board, with Hart saying the same would be done in ’Busco to extend the life of the salt supply.
“We mix ours with sand so it can last a little longer,” he said.
Brian Van Emon, county highway supervisor, said his department also uses a mix of salt and sand.
“We already dilute it. We do not use straight salt,” he said today as crews continued to clear the few inches of snow from roads.
Since there wasn’t much ice with Tuesday night’s snowfall, Van Emon said salt probably wouldn’t need to be used today.
When the ice hits though, the county will also be ready, with 800 tons of salt having been ordered this year. The supply is delivered in 100 tons at a time.
Fortunately for the county, prices stayed around $70 a ton from their long-time supplier, Van Emon said.
The county usually uses 600 to 800 tons of salt a year.
As winter progresses, intersections, curves and hills could get higher priority than straight stretches of road, but Van Emon said he hopes to be able to salt evenly for as much of the winter as possible.
Something that residents can do to help street and highway crews is to not plow their snow from driveways into the road, something county drivers encountered while clearing roads Tuesday night.
“They (residents) don’t realize that we’re just going to plow it back. We’re not going to remove it,” Van Emon said, adding that it seems like nearly everyone plows into the road.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, December 18 2008 )
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